Another Reason to Celebrate the Heroes of the NYPD

Whether or not you think graffiti qualifies as art or if it merits jail time, you should be appalled by the tactics of the NYPD Anti-Graffiti Initiative. The campaign's newest posters are all over the subways: bright yellow background with a graphic of handcuffs next to bold black letters that proclaim "VANDALISM IS A CRIME." That's not the worst part. The NYPD is offering a "reward up to $500 for the arrest and conviction of anyone who commits Graffiti Vandalism." (And yes, in case you were wondering, the G and V are actually capitalized on the poster. If capitalizing random words makes them more important, I would think that rape should be capitalized before graffiti vandalism ever is). Not to mention that the only other NYPD posters offering rewards are for information leading to the arrests of wanted criminals. But that's not the worst part either. The worst part is that the NYPD is asking citizens to "call 911 to report crimes in progress." Really? You want people to tie up 911 operators with phone calls reporting petty crimes when no one's life is actually being endangered? Why can't all graffiti informants call 311 whether the crime is in progress or not? If there is a dedicated graffiti clean up Task Force that has access to the 311 system "to track and monitor all graffiti complaints on a daily basis", why should anyone divert the city's emergency resources for something which doesn't really qualify as an emergency? God forbid that the latest victim of violent crime in NYC can't get help because the emergency operators are busy coordinating with the police to take down the latest tagger in the neighborhood.